My thoughts on the Phillies season.

The Phillies will continue their trip to Washington, trying to win their second series in a row.

The Phillies (57-49) three games series with the last place Nationals (38-68) will continue tonight with a night game from Nationals Park. The game will began at 7:10 pm Eastern. The Phillies’ starter will be Jamie Moyer (9-6, 3.76), who is coming off a well pitched game that ended up as a no-decision against the Mets on July 24, as he pitched his ninth straight quality start, going seven inning, giving up only one earned run on two hits, in the Phillies’ 2-1 lost. He will be trying once again for his tenth win of the year while also going for his tenth straight quality start. Moyer has faced the Nationals already twice this year, with a 1-0 record, and a no-decision that the Phillies would win in extra-innings, as he pitch a combined total of nine and two-thirds innings, giving up six runs, three of which were earned, on sixteen hits. The Nationals will counter by sending to the mound Tim Redding (7-5, 3.98), who is coming off a lost against the Giants on July 24, where he went eight innings, giving up an earned run on seven hits, in the Nationals’ 1-0 lost. He has already faced the Phillies twice this year, with a 2-0 record, keeping the Phils scoreless in thirteen and a third innings on eight hits. He will be aiming for his third win against the Phillies this season, while trying to keep them scoreless.

The Phillies’ offense tonight will be trying to figure out how they can best defeat Tim Redding, who has so far this year have shut them out in over thirteen innings of work, especially after yesterday’s performance in which they did almost nothing against the rookie hurler, Collin Balester. The Phillies have better figure him out quickly, since it would appear that with the way the Nationals are playing right now, the veteran Jamie Moyer should have almost no problem dominating them tonight, unless he throws up a real harmful mistake or two. The offense, if it have a game plan to defeat Redding tonight, I would highly recommend that they follow it and try not to improvise. Otherwise, they are going to be in for a long and frustrating night tonight. After all, Redding is beatable, else he would not have had five loses this year. So, just figure out what Redding has done wrong in those five loses and use that knowledge against him. But remember, above all, one very important thing: He’s not Cy Young, he’s not Walter Johnson, he’s not Carl Hubbell, he’s not Dizzy Dean, he’s not Whitey Ford, he’s not Bob Gibson, he’s not Steve Carlton and he certainly is not Tom Glavine. Now get in there and beat the pants off of him.

The Phillies go into tonight’s game trailing the Mets by half a game and ahead of the Marlins by a game and a half, as the two teams prepare for the final game of their three games series in Miami. The fourth place Braves trail the Phillies by seven and a half games as they prepare to face St. Louis for the third game of their four games set. The Phillies will be hoping that the pesky fish will defeat the Mets tonight while they try to regain first place in the National League East, while at the same time hoping that the Braves, especially after their trade of Mark Teixeira to the Angels, will start fading from the pennant picture.

Edit: Looking at Beerleaguer.com, I’d just learned that against the Phillies, Tim Redding is 4-2 with a 2.34 ERA in eight career starts. Which shows that the Phillies has been able to beat him in the past. The offense will need to remember how they have done it in the past if they want to continue today and in the future.

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